I Know Nothing: What I’ve Discovered.

“Because how can we pray for our country if we don’t know what’s happening in and around it? “

With the craziness of school, being a fitness and workout junkie, having two jobs and being a bible study leader, I would have suspected upon glancing at my new schedule a few months ago that those things would be all that I would be able to focus on for a while. However, a random injury took my world by storm so I had some mandatory R&R.

One important thing that I picked back up during this “down-time” so to speak was my love for reading. I loved to read. I used to win school contests for reading the most books in a year (one year it was around 300, mind you this was only elementary school, but still!) I had not read an entire book since my senior year in high school! After realizing this, my mind was blown. So since then, I have gone exploring to different book and thrift stores and have started to take a few minutes each day to catch up on a lot of books that I have missed out on, which has also been very relaxing.

Second, and most importantly, overall, I have come to the conclusion that I am not very smart. For many of you reading, you might be thinking, “what? Then how did you get into college? “. What I mean by this is that I am totally “world illiterate”. I have been blatantly ignoring global issues around me, meaning that I have been completely useless to the efforts to make this world better. This semester in my public health class, we have been digging heavily into the Syrian Refugee Crisis which I have heard bits and pieces of on the news (during the spare times it is on), sure. But actually reading into what is happening and applying it to my life, or thinking about things from a biblical perspective, I realize that it is extremely important for me to know about what’s going on around me at all times. Because how can we pray for our country if we don’t know what’s happening in and around it? I have been pondering about this for days and realize that my prayers should not be so general. Throughout this time, I have also been looking for a watching documentaries that relate to anything from governmental politics to racism, sexism, classicism, and more, and I have already found many connections between all of them. I have been learning about prison reform and I am now getting to build my own opinions about many of the issues that I hear so many others talking about. I no longer rely on Facebook to provide me with “news”- I want to research. I want to get involved. And there is a newfound feeling of joy of not being so ignorant to the facts. Here are the facts: Our country truly is suffering. Through the incorrect handling of social media and public media outlets as a whole, we are getting a distorted image of reality. We are not looking at the big picture, and are choosing to focus on minute aspects that ultimately are over talked about. Many of us ALSO have the “well, it’s not happening to me” perspective, and guys, that’s bad. Toss that mindset OUT. It IS happening to us. This nation truly is falling, and day by day, this is becoming more and more evident.

Basically, to wrap this up, though I could go on all day about some of these topics, I just want to remind everyone to stay up to date and know your facts about world issues. They DO directly relate to us, whether or not we are the ones actively in a war, in a homeless shelter, in a terrorist country, in a “black lives matter” movement, in an abortion clinic, and so forth. Don’t pray that empty prayer that I have used so many times because I didn’t want to look at so many “negative” things or see all of the convicting images of those around us suffering. It is our duty to know what’s going on. And it is our duty to be a light in this dark world.